Time is a Predator
by Alixtii
Summary: Capt. Braxton targets a young Lieut. Cmdr. Kathryn Janeway as she awaits her new assignment as science officer on the U.S.S. Socrates.
1. Prologue

> TIME IS A PREDATOR
>
>> > **"It's like a predator. It's stalking you. . . . In the end, time is going to hunt you down—and make the kill."  
****——Dr. Tolias Soran,** _**Star Trek Generations**_
>>> 
>>> **"They say time is the fire in which we burn, and right now, Captain, my time is running out."  
****——Dr. Tolias Soran,_ Star Trek Generations _ **
> 
> Note: Star Trek and its universe belongs to Paramount Pictures and was created by Gene Roddenberry. No infringement of copyright is intended.
> 
> * * *
> 
> **_Stardate 553506_**
> 
> Commander Reynolds paced back and forth in front of the Admirals as he made his case. "This man is dangerous. After catching an acute case of temporal psychosis, he made attempts on the life of Kathryn Janeway in three distinct timelines.
> 
> "I call to the stand Lieutenant Commander Kathryn Janeway, _U.S.S. Socrates, _Stardate 53253.6, Alternate Time line 5473-A." Janeway rose and walked toward the chair, then sat in it. "Commander, you understand that your oath as a Starfleet officer requires you to tell the truth in this courtroom?"
> 
> Janeway nodded. "I do."
> 
> "Very well," Reynolds said. "Would you mind describing to us what exactly happened on Stardate 53251.3?"
> 
> "Well," Janeway said, "I was on my way to Starbase 236 . . ."


	2. Chapter One

"Sir?"

Admiral Paris looked up, surprised. It wasn't a typical reaction of his. "Kathryn. Congratulations on your promotion. Do you have your bags packed?"

I had already gathered the few things I wanted to take with me—a few mementos, so to speak—so I nodded. "Ready to be on my way, sir."

"Good. Have a nice time, lieutenant." His gaze sadly returned to the pictures on his deck, of his wife, his daughters, and his son. "Lieutenant Commander, rather."

I couldn't stand to see him like this. He was normally such a powerful man—one who took action. But what could he do?

"Sir?"

"Yes, Kathryn?" he said, his eyes not moving from the pictures—one picture in particular.

"Is there anything I can do?"

A sad smile came to his face. "I know I'm not taking this very well," he said. "But it hurts me to think it might be partially my fault."

I stood there, waiting for him to continue.

"Perhaps I pushed him too hard to be in Starfleet. It hurt knowing that the Paris tradition of Starfleet excellence might end. Maybe more than I realized." He sighed. "I didn't push any of his sisters as hard as I did him. It was okay when they wanted to pursue other careers—I always had Tom to fall back on."

Not sure what else to do, I nodded sympathetically.

"And now the Paris tradition of excellence in Starfleet truly has come to end."

"You don't know that, sir," I tried to say comfortingly.

"None of the girls' kids are going to be in Starfleet—I'm sure of that. My great-grandkids might make damned good officers, but I won't be around to see it."

It surprised me to hear him say that. Every year the average lifespan grew longer. The oldest person in Starfleet, Admiral McCoy, was 132—old enough to see his great, great grandchildren grow up if he had had any kids. (Had he? I remember there being some talk once of his having had a daughter--but that seemed to have been nothing more than an idle rumour of the sort which is all too commonly circulated at the Academy.)

He seemed to know what I was thinking—one of his many abilities. "I'm an old man, Kathryn. Older than I look. I've been through a lot. Compared to much of it, the Cardassian torture was a walk in a holopark." He shook his head. "It all takes its toll on a man."

He got up slowly and walked toward the replicator. "Coffee, black." Once it materialized, he handed me the steaming mug.

Then he walked out onto the bridge. I followed him, drinking the coffee.

"What's our ETA?" he asked.

"Ten minutes," answered Lieutenant O'aet.

"Well, there you have it, Lieutenant Commander. The ultimatum. Ten minutes until we drop you off at Starbase 236 and fly away at top warp."

Commander Jolson, the chief engineer, was on the bridge at the time, and decided to take advantage of the moment. He picked up a padd and walked towards us. "Admiral, I finished those modifications you wanted. We should be able to make warp 9.8."

The admiral frowned. "Not good enough. I want at least 9.9."

At this point, I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing. After that, both the admiral and engineer quickly started guffawing with me. The rest of the bridge joined in.

I'm not normally that emotional. But heck, it was my last ten minutes—and laughing was better than crying.

This was the ship I had served on for the last three years, and the commander I served under since I graduated from the Academy. And now I would be going on. To bigger and better things, they say. Sure, it was a bigger ship. But I had been through a lot on that ship.

"Well," I said, "I had better go get my bags."

Admiral Paris nodded. I began to leave.

"Kathryn."

I turned. "Sir?"

"Goodbye."

I nodded, and stepped into the turbolift. "Deck Four," I said.


	3. Chapter Two

Well, it was done with. I was off the ship. Standing in my temporary quarters waiting for my new ship to come seemed kind of pointless, so I decided to check out the tavern. Most starbase taverns were stocked pretty well, with several varieties of synthehol. If I was going to drug myself, I'd prefer to do it with caffeine, but they served coffee as well. Most of all, I just wanted to have someone to talk to.

I met someone fairly soon. I had been drinking the coffee—life-giving liquid that it is—when someone behind me said, "Commander Janeway?"

I turned around to see a young Vulcan women, elegantly dressed, sipping what seemed to be Romulan ale. "I am Lieutenant T'Lin," she said after I conceded that I was indeed Kathryn Janeway, "ship's counselor on the _Socrates_. I wanted to introduce myself to you, as we will be serving together."

"I'm Kathryn Janeway," I said. I put my hand up in the Vulcan salute. "Live Long and Prosper, Lieutenant."

She nodded. "Is this seat occupied?"

I shook my head. "Sit down." She did so. "I didn't know Vulcans made good psychiatrists."

T'Lin paused before answering me, something that surprised me since I thought that she would have got that question a lot. "Vulcans tend to be more in touch with their emotional states than humans. They have to be in, in order to keep their control. This emotional sorting sometimes gives them the experience necessary to guide others. While this will be the first ship I will serve on as counselor, I have already found that many humans prefer to disclose their feelings to a Vulcan, since they know they will not be judged. They are also more willing to believe a Vulcan will keep an oath of confidentiality. And, of course, the mind meld may be used for therapeutic reasons, though usually only as a last resort."

All that seemed to make sense to me, so I nodded. Yet I still doubted that a Vulcan could totally comprehend human emotions.

Still, my knowledge of Vulcans was largely academic. I knew a little Vulcan history and had studied some of Surak's teachings in the Academy, but I never knew one better than a casual acquaintances. I soon found that T'Lin could interact in a human environment almost effortlessly and still keep her Vulcan reserve. We chatted (I still had trouble believing Vulcans could engage in casual conversations) for a while, and exchanged stories.

After a while a waiter came around, and T'Lin did indeed order a synthehol version of Romulan ale. "Not as good as the real stuff, but you take what you can get," she told me. I ordered a coffee.

The waiter returned with our drinks, but as he did so, I heard the familiar whine of a transporter beam. I spun around to see who would use a transporter just to get to the bar. What appeared was beyond my expectations.

A woman stood there, dressed in an odd outfit that seemed like a bunch of rags sewn together. Whatever it was, it must have been two or three sizes to small. When she spoke, it was in a deep voice whose accent and inflections were reminiscent of a ship's computer. "I have come," she said, "to kill Kathryn Janeway."

The woman's eyes swept the room, and finally came to rest on me. I tried to maneuver out of the bar, but she followed me. Suddenly she raised her hand, stretching it out as if she were reaching for me. Then, the hand began to glow.

A burst of blue energy, similar to the energy beam of a Starfleet phaser, shot out of her hand. I jumped out of the way, but only barely in time. I watched as the floor dissolved next to me.

It seems that T'Lin has some pretty fast reflexes. While everyone else in the bar was still gaping at the sight, she had her hand on her commbadge. "Intruder alert. Security detail, immediately."

I was trying to get out of the tavern, to get the people around me out of risk, but most of all, I was trying to get out of the way of the terrible blue beams. One grazed a young cadet, and a large chunk of his leg dissolved. His entire body fell to the floor limp.

I heard T'Lin say into her commbadge, "We have medical emergencies. We need that security detail now!" Somehow, she was able to sound emphatic without letting emotion into her voice.

I didn't have too much time to ponder the issue however. I was quite busy ducking. I was finally able to slip out just as the security detail slipped in. I watched as they fired their phasers at her. The phasers were set to stun—dead men don't tell the truth.

They fired shot after shot at her but she progressed. I ran towards the turbolift, but I saw out of the corner of my eye the guards resetting their phasers to a higher setting.


	4. Chapter Three

> Luckily for the unlucky cadet, Starbase 236 has exhaustive medical facilities. The doctors had his leg fixed in a few hours.
> 
> Admiral Kiler, in charge of the station's medical facilities, frowned as she entered. "Julian, were you playing James Bond in the holodeck with the fail-safes off again?"
> 
> The cadet groaned. "If that's your bedside manner, Admiral, you're better off behind a desk."
> 
> The admiral shook her head. "I don't know why you were in the tavern any way. You were supposed to be studying for your exams next week." The cadet flinched under her icy stare. I remember the look from when I was a cadet—Admiral Paris would use it when he suspected I wasn't doing my best. Except I never flinched.
> 
> Then the admiral turned to me. She looked me over, then nodded. "You just had a few cuts and scrapes. The doctors healed you up all right. Any idea why she was chasing you?" She gestured towards a biobed with the unconscious form of my mysterious attacker on it.
> 
> I shook my head. "No idea," I said. Then, curious, I asked, "What is she?"
> 
> She looked toward the cadet. "Julian?" I could tell that she had just given him a pop quiz. She turned to me to give an introduction. "Lieutenant Commander Janeway, this is Cadet Bashir—a very gifted pupil of mine, if a bit frivolous." He shrugged.
> 
> He got up from his biobed, however, and inspected the diagrams on the screen. "Odd," he said. "Very odd. Definitely not human—some type of cyborg, perhaps—there are some mechanic parts." He enhanced the magnification, then pressed a few more commands. A picture of the woman's cells was called up. "These nanoprobes," he said, pointing and tiny silver specks in the picture, "I've heard of rumors of a race that uses technology like this."
> 
> "The Borg," I said. I'd heard the rumors as well. In fact, two respected scientists had recently left the quadrant looking for them—but the scientific community as a whole claimed that the rumors were unfounded. Of course, _something_ had destroyed the El-Aurian homeworld.
> 
> He nodded. "Of course, this is all speculation," he said, under the watchful eye of the admiral. Then he pushed a few more controls, and a chart of some sort appeared. "Gods," he said, then turned to Admiral Kiler. She nodded.
> 
> I looked at the chart, and realized what was on the chart that was so important. The chronoton levels were extremely high. "She traveled through time to kill me?"
> 
> The admiral nodded. "It seems you're going to make a rather large enemy in the future."
> 
> The cadet cleared his throat. "She seems to be some type of cyborg—but of a type I've never seen before."
> 
> The admiral nodded. "I've run some tests—she's totally artificial. Synthetic flesh over a metal armature. She actually has part of a brain, but is completely controlled by some artificial intelligence program. And if there was any doubt of her being from the future, she also has this." She called up a diagram of the woman's (or, rather, cyborg's) skull, and in the center was a blinking spot indicating some type of device.
> 
>   

> 
> "What is it?" I asked.
> 
> "I'm not sure," the admiral admitted. "In fact, there is a lot of technology here I don't understand—technology centuries beyond our own. I was hoping that since you have had some experience as a ship's science officer, though, you might be able to figure some of it out. I'm only a doctor. If you can't figure it out, I'll have to submit it to Command, and I could get wrapped up in red tape for weeks—years, considering its function."
> 
> A shiver went down my spine as I remembered that it was programmed to kill me. From what I had seen, it was the perfect assassin.
> 
> I nodded, and went to work at the console when the biobed suddenly beeped. The admiral looked at it, her face ashen. "She's coming to," she said. "I've already given her six doses of hydrocortazine—I don't think another will work." She stepped away from the biobed. "Computer, erect a level twelve force field around biobed twenty-six," she ordered.
> 
> I watched as bed seemed to flicker as the force field sprang to life around it. And almost seconds later, the woman was conscious. She looked at me, tried to get through the force field. When she couldn't, she stretched out her arm and began to use her energy beam to break down the force field.
> 
> "It won't hold long against that thing," Kiler said. "Kiler to Admiral Jones."
> 
> There was a pause, and then the admiral came on. "Jones here. Are we having difficulty with the intruder?"
> 
> "Yes, sir. Seal off Section 82-C. And have us beamed directly to the _U.S.S. Chapel_. I'll try to get Lieutenant Commander Janeway away from the station. Perhaps it'll keep it from hurting anybody else."
> 
> "Understood, Kiler," responded Admiral Jones. I could tell by his tone that he didn't exactly approve of her plan, but realized there was no time for argument. I looked at the controls next to the biobed force field—the integrity was already down to 47%. Within moments, the force field would be down and we would be sitting ducks. She reached out her hand, ready to fire. She did.
> 
> The blast went through us as we demolecularized in the transporter beam.
> 
> We were not alone on the bridge. There was a young lieutenant commander there, waiting for someone, perhaps. I had met him before, perhaps while I was in the Academy. The admiral seemed to recognize him, too, and was not thrilled by the fact.
> 
> "What are you doing here, Wil?" she asked him.
> 
> "That is classified beyond your level." While I was sure he was lying, he gave no indication of falsity. He would be a great poker player.
> 
> "Yeah right. I see classified information you won't see for eighty years. More like you were expecting a romantic liaison. Nonetheless, there's no time to call your bluff. Get at the helm and get us out."
> 
> He smiled. "Aye, aye, sir. Where are we going?"
> 
> She considered. "As far from the heart of Federation space as we can get. Maximum warp."
> 
> He pushed some buttons. "Maximum warp is somewhere in the area of six-point-two, Admiral. The warp engines aren't exactly in perfect condition."
> 
> The admiral looked at me. I nodded. I had just became chief engineer for the _U.S.S. Chapel_, a ship that was scheduled for a desperately-needed refit. Of course, it wasn't going to get that refit now. I would do what I could.


	5. Chapter 3, Cont'd

> I did my best, attempting to do everything I could to increase warp. I was able to increase to warp eight-point-six, but at that I reached an impasse. It's surprising I got that far, with little experience and no crew.
> 
> Done that, I contacted the bridge to see how we were making out.
> 
> Admiral Kiler told me to come up to the bridge.


	6. Chapter Four

"Yes?" I asked as I stepped out of the turbolift.

"We detected a run-about from Starbase 236 on an intercept course."

"ETA?" I asked.

The helmsman, Wil Riker, answered. "Two hours."

Admiral Kiler looked at me. "Do we have any shields or weapons?"

I glanced at the engineering console on the bridge. "We have a few photon torpedoes, but both shields and phasers are off-line."

Admiral Kiler nodded, understanding. Why couldn't Starbase 236 had the flagship docked there instead of a broken down medical ship?

Well, I returned to engineering, trying to get the shields on-line. I tried a few tricks, played around with them for a few minutes, fixing the damaged circuitry. Once I got them functioning, I tried to reinforce them with the power from the non-essential systems (most of which weren't working anyway).

Then I started to work on the phasers. They were stubborn. Nothing I did would get them to work. I finally called to the bridge and told Admiral Kiler.

"We'll do with what we can. The runabout itself doesn't present any danger to us, of course, but I have a feeling that we'll going to come face-to-face with a larger ship than that."

"What?" I exclaimed, incredulous. I had worked hard so we would be ready to face a ship that Kiler now said wouldn't be a threat. Granted, a runabout isn't a great danger in normal circumstances. But it did have warp, weapons, and shields, and that was enough. It struck me as a major threat, especially considering the assassin-machine that drove it.

"Come to the bridge, Lieutenant Commander, and see what I mean."

Well, I headed for the turbolift to go to the bridge, still not having any idea what she had in mind.

Once I walked onto the bridge, Admiral Kiler asked Wil for our ETA.

"Two minutes."

"Julian, transmit the sequence seven-alpha-twelve-nine-omega-six directly to the runabout's main computer."

The cadet nodded at the communications station and laid in the commands.

"Good. Now transmit the following instructions: Lower shields, take phasers off-line."

Julian did so.

I watched in amazement as the ship in front us followed the admiral's commands.

Kiler turned to Riker. "Wil, lock onto the runabout and fire a photon torpedo. I'm not taking any more chances with that creature."

One of the few photon torpedoes we had was launched out of the ship and came in contact with the assassin's runabout. It immediately disintegrated in the antimatter explosion.

However, we were not as lucky as we thought.

Julian called out, "Admiral, she beamed on to our ship!"

The admiral turned and looked at him, incredulously. "Through our shields?"

  


I turned to the nearby ops console and made a few calculations. "I'm not sure how she did it. I am picking up energy disturbances, some type of interference pattern. She must have punched through with whatever sophisticated personal transporter device she has integrated in her bioneural circuitry."

Kiler sighed. "However she did, we have to get away. Are the transporters functioning?"

I checked the engineering console. "Aye, Admiral."

"Julian," asked Kiler, "where is she?"

"Deck Three," he promptly answered.

She turned to me. "Kathryn, beam us directly to the battle bridge. Everybody, prepare for saucer separation."

The _Chapel_ was not as old a ship as the damage done to her would suggest. It was actually a state-of-the-art, experimental medical ship designed to deliver medical aid to the worlds on the Cardassian border. The ship was attacked by the Cardassians and thus suffered heavy casualties. Such an attack was anticipated, however, and the _Chapel _was equipped with some of the best combat equipment available, including a separable saucer section, one of the innovations that will be included in the proposed _Galaxy_-class starship, a new line that will be coming out in about three years.

I pushed the controls on my console, and the bridge immediately dissolved around us as it was replaced by the dimly-lit battle bridge.

"Helm, full speed!" called out the admiral. "Lieutenant Commander Janeway. . . ."

"I'm on it," I said, already She didn't have to tell me what to do—it was obvious. The problem was, I only had a few seconds to do it. "Enhancing shields to compensate for the interference patterns. She won't be able to pull that trick again."

The saucer section of the _Chapel_ became smaller and smaller as we moved away from it. Admiral Kiler didn't waste time or photon torpedoes destroying it—the abomination could probably survive in cold vacuum.

It seemed we would continue our game of cat-and-mouse indefinitely.

Someone, however, had other ideas.

The ops console beeped and I checked the readings. "I'm picking up massive chronoton readings," I reported. "Space-time distortions as well."

"Onscreen," was the admiral's reply. The blur of the anomaly grew distinct and opaque, sort of like a warbird or bird-of-prey uncloaking. However, the ship didn't stay still, but instead shot forward at an approximate speed of Warp 9.999—much closer to Warp 10 than any starship has gone since they revised the warp charts. The ship slowed to impulse only in a matter of seconds, an impressive feat.

The ship itself looked a little like a sort of Orion freighter. However, the readings I was getting indicated that someone had modified it extensively—and probably in a short period of time. Whoever had done the job was in a hurry to get his or her job done.

"We're being hailed," called out Cadet Bashir.

"Onscreen," ordered the admiral, but in desperation. She didn't seem to think whoever was in that ship would listen to reason. I had to agree, but the reasoning was sound. She didn't have to have the sophisticated readings in front of me to know that any ship with a temporal drive would probably have phasers powerful enough to blow us out of space then and there.

  


On the screen, there was a sort of Orion bridge. Sitting forwards the front in what I took to be a command seat was an older man wearing an unfamiliar uniform. I took it to be a future version of the Starfleet uniform, but even the delta was missing.

"I am Captain Braxton," he told us, "former commander of the timeship _Relativity_. Deliver Janeway to me and I will leave your ship unharmed."

I think this was the first and only time Kiler actually considered sacrificing me. After all, it was not good command policy to risk several officers' lives to save one. On the other hand, a commander never abandons a crewmember. I saw all of the admiral's training and experience flash through her eyes as she made a decision.

"If Janeway is so important to you, I can only assume that she's going to do something important to make such a powerful enemy. I can't afford to sacrifice the time line."

"What does the time line matter to you?" asked Braxton. "Maybe she will save thousands of lives—or maybe she will destroy billions. Either way, it's all pre-determined. Don't you want to write your own future? Don't you want to be free?"

"Not if means destroying thousands of potential lives."

"And if I tell you that otherwise this is your last day on this plane?"

This wasn't an idle threat. Braxton was attempting to predict the future—_our _future. But to him, it was all ancient history. In all likelihood, _very_ ancient history.

"Then I'll say," answered Kiler, "that I still have a duty as a Starfleet officer—a duty you have abrogated, _Captain_. As a superior officer, I order you to stand down. If you refuse, then I don't plan on going to hell without taking you with me."

Bold words from someone ordained to die. Of course, there always was the chance Braxton was bluffing—but I didn't think he was. I don't think Kiler thought so, either.

"You have five minutes to make your decision, Admiral."

"End transmission," Kiler said, then collapsed in the captain's chair. "I'm a doctor, not a damnèd battle captain." She looked up at us, though, and I saw a new determination etch itself onto her face. We were her crew, and she would risk life and limb to protect us. Her life for her ship's, and all that.

Determination alone, however, would not save the day. "Recommendations?" she asked.

The bridge was quiet for a second, then I spoke up. "There's a Class E nebula about half a minute from here at warp four. If we enter, he wouldn't be able to follow us in—the high level of kytian particles would interfere with his temporal core."

"Can we do it?" she asked.

"The shields would hold for about an hour and a half, if that's what you mean. We'd get rocked around a bit, though."

Kiler turned to Riker. "I can keep control of the helm," he told her. "But I'm not making any promises we'll get through in one piece."

"If we can keep away from them for even a few minutes," said Kiler, "maybe we can devise a strategy. Helm, make it so."

Riker punched in the coordinates and went flying torward the nebula. Braxton, however, wasn't willing to let us escape. The Orion timeship was keeping pace with us. They fired.

I could tell by my readings that the phaser blast was only a fraction of what they were capable. Nonetheless, its effect on the shields was phenomenal. "Shield integrity down to 11%," I reported. A few seconds later, the front shields came in contact with the nebula. They held, but the ship shuddered at the collision.

Riker adjusted a few controls, and we continued our path into the nebula. The ship's shuddering continued to grow more and more distinct as they rocked the ship more greatly than the inertial dampers could compensate.

I worked the scanners, helping Riker to navigate through the nebula. "Watch out for that flare!" I warned him, but it was too late. It hit us squarely in our port shields.

The ship went flying through the nebula, out of control. "Inertial dampers, off-line," I reported, as Riker held onto his console, trying to regain control of the ship. The admiral flew into the viewscreen as the ship quickly jerked from one direction to another.

Soon, Riker had regained control of the ship, and we came to a rest. Julian slowly and deliberately got up and walked towards the admiral, then passed his medical tricorder over her. "She's dead," he reported.

I wondered if this was the first time the cadet had seen somebody die. He had learned about death in his medical classes, of course, but I wondered if they could really prepare a student to see his mentor die before his eyes.

I worked to get the inertial dampers on-line. Without them, I was getting space sick. (Of course, practically everyone gets spacesickness when the dampers aren't working correctly. I can proudly say I never get space sick under normal conditions.) I managed to get them back on-line using the engineering console, but I couldn't get them properly aligned without returning to engineering.

With the admiral dead, that put Riker in charge. While he was the same rank as me, he had been a lieutenant commander longer than just a few days. Also, his new assignment, the _U.S.S. MacArthur, _was a ship tactically superior to the _Socrates_, my assignment. On top of all that, he was the only command officer on the ship. He outranked me in every way but rank. I looked at him.

I remembered a long time ago, when we were both at the Academy, I had been on a blind date with the man. He conceded his one wish—to captain a starship.

"Well, Wil," I said, "you beat Jim Kirk. You're now the captain of the _U.S.S._ _Chapel_"

He nodded, resignedly. "Kathryn," he told me, "get down in engineering. Find a way to beat these guys—and fix those dampers before I lose my lunch."

I nodded, and headed for the turbolift.


	7. Chapter Five

> In Engineering, I worked, waiting for inspiration. I busied myself by repairing damage circuitry, improving the shields, and, of course, realigning the inertial dampers. I had Riker send down Bashir. He was a doctor, not an engineer, but an extra set of hands, even untrained ones, was useful. More useful than he would have been on the bridge, at least.
> 
> I looked over the information Kiler had gotten on the assassin-creature. I marveled at the technology contained in her. Built-in weapons, shielding, transporter, and cloak. Devices I could only guess as to what they did. Nanoprobes which could regenerate damage almost instantaneously. Run by some advanced artificial intelligence which received commands through some type of temporal transmitter. The whole thing was sort of eery.
> 
> It didn't seem to have any weakness.
> 
> The ship, fortunately, was not so perfect.
> 
> Unlike the assassin, the ship's components were not perfectly integrated. They had been thrown together at the last minute. My guess was, the Orion ship was only from fifty or a hundred years in our future, while it was modified from technology mpore like four or five hundred years in the future. The temporal jump it had made had placed severe stress on the ship, and I doubted it could make another one.
> 
> Of course, there wasn't any reason for it to have to.
> 
> Against a contemporary ship, it would probably go up in flames.
> 
> Against 24th technology, it was unstoppable. There was absolutely no way we could survive against it.
> 
> Unless. . . .
> 
> It was a crazy idea. The odds against it were astronomical in a way I had never encountered before. Yet it may have been our only choice. I had to at least explain it to Riker.


	8. Chapter Six

"_What_?" was his predictable response, after I explained my idea to him in the _Chapel_'s ready room.

I explained it again, although I knew he had understood it the first time. "If we get onboard the timeship, we may be able to disable it from inside. Otherwise, we're get blown away as soon as we leave the nebula."

He shook his head. "So we just let them capture us?"

"No. But as soon as they drop their shields to beam us aboard, we transport there. If we can beat them to it, we may have a chance."

Riker sighed. "It won't work," he said.

"Probably not," I agreed. "What else do we do? Self-destruct the ship? Either way, I die, and Braxton gets what he wants."

"Very well, Kathryn. If that's what you think we should do, I'm willing to give it a try. Do you have any idea how we can disable the ship?"

"No clue," I admitted. "But if I can get some close-range tricorder scans, I may be able to locate a power source or something."

Riker looked at me kind of funny. "And if you can't?"

"Then we're no worse off than being sitting ducks in a broken medical ship without even functioning phasers."

Riker nodded. "Well, let's get to the bridge and tell the crew—or Julian, as the case may be."


	9. Chapter Seven

"We are prepared to drop our shield so you can retrieve Janeway."

"Good," said Braxton. "You 24th century primitives have finally learned some wisdom."

The transmission ended. "He's dropped his shields," I reported.

Riker looked at me. "You're ready to initiate transport as soon as we drop shields?" I nodded. He looked around at Julian and me. We all were armed with a phaser and a tricorder. "Drop shields and initiate transport, then."

Within seconds, we were caught in the transporter effect.

We materialized somewhere in the cargo section of the freighter.

Riker looked at me. "Do you have those scans you need?"

I shook my head. "Most of the devices are temporally phased."

Riker considered it. "Can you realign the tricorder?"

"Not without knowing the temporal variance," I told him.

"And where will be able to find that out?" Julian asked.

Riker looked around. "I don't know how Orion freighters will be built four hundred years from now, but in today's models, that kind of information could only be accessed directly from the engineering computer . . . or the bridge."

"I suggest engineering," I told him.

"Agreed, number one," he told me. "Let's go." 


End file.
